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A Friday evening talk has traditionally opened the public programme of the Shrewsbury cartoon festival. This year ‘Cartoonists in Conversation’ aimed to give the public an insight into the lives of cartoonists, whose work they would probably be familiar with but know little about the people behind them.

The number of cartoonists gathering in the town (this year there were 30) meant we had a stellar line-up to choose from. Jeremy Banx (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Private Eye) resplendent in his beret, The Surreal McCoy (The Spectator, Reader’s Digest, The Sunday Times), Royston Robertson (Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The Spectator) and Wilbur Dawbarn (The Beano, Private Eye, The Spectator) were joined by Ken Krimstein (New Yorker, Harvard Business Review) who was over from Chicago and brought an international perspective to the chat. Our host for the evening was BBC radio presenter Alex Lester, a festival patron and cartoon enthusiast.

The discussion covered various aspects of life as a cartoonist, alongside some superb examples of their work. Topics covered included the creation of the work and their workspace, some ‘greatest hits’ over the years, stories of rejection slips, offence, their influences and inspirations, and of course a mention of Trump. After the main panel discussion came questions direct from the audience.

Hearty thanks for the success of the evening go to the cartoonists on the panel, and Alex Lester for all being fabulous. The Wightman Theatre set us up wonderfully and Andy McKeown of WildStrawberry.com’s wonderful projection made the evening such a treat visually.

Following the exodus of Spain’s top cartoonists from the satirical magazine El Jueves last month (we covered that here), a rival digital version has appeared online titled Orgullo y Satisfacción (Pride and Satisfaction). It has had 30,000 downloads since its launch a few weeks ago. The digital magazine will become a regular monthly publication from September.

The “cic” stands for community interest company. The not-for-profit venture is part Lottery-funded and aims to develop creative local history projects by and for the residents of Handsworth, Birmingham. Appropriately, the first product will be a comic, with input from young, aspiring cartoonists, charting the history of the area.

The exhibition Spitting Image: From Start to Finish opens at the Cartoon Museum in London tomorrow (26 February) – 30 years to the day since the TV series burst into our living rooms and put satire back at the heart of British comedy.

The anniversary has already prompted a debate on the current state of satire on TV, with the Spitting Image producer John Lloyd and the Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, a former writer for the show, putting forward opposing views.

Finally, we note with sadness that Gordon Bell, cartoonist for The Beano and the Dundee Courier, and Tony Harding, who drew football stories for Scorcher, Hotspur, and Action, both passed away recently.

Procartoonists.org writer Royston Robertson will be giving a talk about cartoons on Bank Holiday Monday (26 August) at the Kings Theatre in Ramsgate, as part of the town’s Summer Squall arts festival. The talk begins at 11am and is completely free to attend. Royston will be showing a selection of his published cartoons and talking about the process behind producing a gag cartoon for publication. This will be his second talk for the festival, with his debut in 2010 having been very popular with the public.

Cootehill International Cartoon Festival takes place in County Cavan, Ireland, over the weekend of 14-15 September. The event will feature workshops, exhibitions and live drawing, and Hunt Emerson, Tim Leatherbarrow and Graeme Keyes are among the cartoonists taking part. Check the festival’s Facebook page for updates.

AFP.com talks to Kash, a political cartoonist who has made a career out of finding humour in the political and social troubles in his native Democratic Republic of Congo. Read the interview here. You can also see Kash draw and hear him talk about his work in this video.

Ian Hislop and Richard Ingrams – editors of Private Eye and The Oldie respectively – will be joined by Nick Newman, long-time contributor to both magazines, for a panel session at the Soho Literary Festival on 26 September. The Cartoon Show will feature a slideshow of some of the best gags from the last 50 years, and the trio will talk about what they look for when selecting cartoons for publication. Tickets are available here.

Burmese cartoonist Kyaw Thu Yein tells Cartoon Movement about the way he works, as well as the impact of censorship, in this interview.

London’s Southbank Centre is currently host to Beanotown, a celebration of the comic that runs until 8 September and features a range of original artwork on the walls, as well as activities for the kids. Wilbur Dawbarn, a Beano cartoonist and PCO member, produced this huge map of Beanotown, which greets visitors by the entrance:

Wilbur Dawbarn for The Beano @Procartoonists.com

And finally, a brief reminder that next Saturday (3 August) will see a plethora of UK cartooning talent descend on Herne Bay in Kent, to take part in a festival celebrating the seaside town’s connection with Marcel Duchamp. Read more here, and visit us in the coming week for a more detailed post.

Chris Burke, the widely published caricaturist and illustrator – and Procartoonists.org member – gives a local blog a tour of his home and studio in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Read the resulting feature interview, and see plenty of examples of Chris’ work, here.

Boing Boing draws our attention to a 12-minute documentary about Charles Addams and the inspiration for his ghoulish Family. Watch it here.

Procartoonists.org member Tim Harries will be taking part in a comic fair in Newport this Saturday (15 June). Find an interview with Tim, along with more details of the event, here.

Peter Brookes, the political cartoonist for The Times, has unveiled his decorated Gromit statue, which was produced for charity and features Brookes’ depictions of Ed ‘Wallace’ Miliband and Ed Balls. Read more at the Times site.

Following on from our last post about what is and isn’t funny, we link to a recent BBC article about the history and humour of the pun – a weapon in the cartoonist’s arsenal that is loved by some and disparaged by others. (We at Procartoonists.org are happy to sit on the fence and say that while some puns deserve nothing but a weary groan, others – such as in the cartoon above, by Bill Stott – are inspired.) Read the article here.

The horsemeat story provided fodder for cartoonists, too, and The Telegraph’s Matt Pritchett was particularly inspired – producing no less than five gags on the subject in just two days. Click here to scroll through them.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast two programmes of interest to cartoonists and illustrators this week. First, there was a half-hour show celebrating the art and characters of The Beano (click here to listen). Then Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen chose to celebrate the Great Life of Aubrey Beardsley (here).

And finally, the Chris Beetles Gallery in London is holding a sale, beginning this weekend. Click here to see the artworks available.

Procartoonists.org member Alexander Matthews has resurrected Lord Snooty for The Beano (above), and writes about his approach to the character on his blog. Snooty has been absent from the comic for a while (and was even replaced by his grandson for a time). Alex has also recently brought his distinctive style to another classic Beano character, Baby-Face Finlayson.

In more DC Thomson news, former Dandy editor Morris Heggie will be giving a talk about the comic’s 75 years at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh on 15 January. The talk, which follows a cartoon workshop for adults held on Wednesday, complements the library’s ongoing Dandy exhibition. Read more here.

Reassuring news (at least, reasonably reassuring) for gag cartoonists came from Reader’s Digest (UK) this week, after mass redundancies painted a bleak picture. While the company – which was bought out of administration in 2010 – is downsizing and will no longer sell retail goods, it apparently intends to continue publishing the monthly magazine as normal. Read the story here.

Axe Cop, the bizarre webcomic created by a five-year-old boy and illustrated by his cartoonist older brother, has been made into an animated TV show. Watch a clip here.

And finally, click here to be taken on a brief tour of The Certified Hunt Emerson, an iPad app featuring more than 200 pages of work by the renowned underground cartoonist (and Procartoonists.org member).

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Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from here.